Hello! I have been a doctor for 21 years. My name is Georgy Olegovich Sapego. In this article I will talk about the theory of an open window.
This was noticed long ago. In athletes, intense training before competition lowers the immune system. Athletes begin to get sick with colds more often. They also activate dormant viruses.
In such athletes, the level of immunoglobulin A decreased from training. We talked about him in the topic aboutbacterial overgrowth in the intestine. It is believed that the level of immunoglobulin A in saliva can be used as a marker of immune problems after exercise. Its decrease will be noticeable for several hours or even days.
It is also said that people who participate in sports can get sick only because a crowd of other people gathers around them. It is clear that the fans can also reload there.
There used to be simple rules. Moderate exercise, such as brisk walking or playing 45 minutes of sports, was believed to be beneficial for immunity most days of the week. But sports training for 2 hours with high intensity can already do harm.
If you think about it, the expenditure of energy for physical work can rob immune cells to some extent, and they will remain hungry. Adrenaline and similar hormones can also disrupt cells. How all this affects immunity can only be verified in practice.
And it was checked. We gave the athletes a blood test. It turned out that during good physical activity, the number of immune cells in the blood increases. Then these cells scatter to different organs and tissues to protect them from infection. The blood is slightly empty. After about 12 hours, everything returns to normal.
At first, it was decided that when the blood becomes empty and there are fewer lymphocyte immune cells in it, then this is bad. This has been called the "open window" theory. Like, various ghouls will fly into the open window and devour the athlete alive.
Then, nevertheless, they decided that the lymphocytes did not run far, but simply went to check in different organs. Well, like a night watchman who heard the noise and, just in case, went around all the rooms.
Then the immune cells will come back, and the blood will not be empty.
Theoretically, the more often the premises are checked, the less chances that someone will manage to manage them. This is probably why physical activity is needed most of the days of the week.
Everything is very complicated in this topic. As soon as the questions about immune cells were raked, the data on antibodies appeared. On athletes-marathon runners tested the effect of vaccines. It turned out that they produced antibodies quite well, and maybe even sometimes better than without a marathon. So it's not all bad ...
Have you had a cold after hard work?
